Scientists have created a model to better predict earthquake activity in subduction zones by studying how rocks dissolve and deform under pressure. This breakthrough could lead to more accurate forecasts of seismic events in areas like the Cascadia Subduction Zone, potentially mitigating the impact of future natural disasters.
The world’s most powerful earthquakes happen in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath the other. When these plates become stuck together, stress builds in the crust of the Earth — like a rubber band being stretched. When enough stress builds up to overcome the friction holding the plates together — like a rubber band snapping — an earthquake occurs.
Pressure solution is difficult to explore in the laboratory because it typically occurs very slowly over thousands to millions of years, Fisher said. Speeding up the process in the lab requires higher temperatures, which produces other changes in rocks that impact the experiments. “We were able to parameterize the solubility as a function of temperature and pressure, in a practical way that hadn’t been done before,” Fisher said. “So now we can plug in numbers — different grain sizes, different temperatures, different pressures and get the strain rate out of that.”
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